


Pragmatical

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Series: Primitive Side [8]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), The Chronicles of Riddick Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Crossover, Gen, Post-Series Pre-Movie, Wordcount: 500-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 03:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20419451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: "She's never going to forgive us for this, is she?" Faith said bleakly, watching through the window as the engines of the transport ship lit outside the station.





	Pragmatical

**Author's Note:**

> Back to my other Buffy/Riddick AU. I never did really explore _how_ Buffy ended up on that transport where Riddick found her, did I? So, a little grim backstory. Contains a Dylan Thomas quote.

"She's never going to forgive us for this, is she?" Faith said bleakly, watching through the window as the engines of the transport ship lit outside the station.

At her side, the only other Scooby still alive-- or undead-- winced. All the others who'd remembered good old Sunny-D had long since gone on to their just rewards; even Spike, who ironically enough had been granted the Shansu after fighting Wolfram and Hart's army in Los Angeles. It was only Faith and Angel these days, a century after the First had been sealed back into its tomb.

None of them had had reason to suspect, when Willow had knelt with the Scythe in her hands and channeled the energy of the Hellmouth through its blade, that it would tie the two already-Called Slayers directly to the Earth's magic field-- or that the Potentials who'd been granted the power that day would be the last Slayers ever Called. All in the name of restoring the Power's so-called balance.

So when all the Seers' predicted futures had started circling the drain, leaving only Buffy and Faith to stand against the rising forces of darkness... options had been pretty thin on the ground.

"No," Angel said, shaking his head. He looked much the same as he had the first time they'd met; face unlined, hands deep in the pockets of a leather jacket, and ages of suffering in his eyes. "She wanted to be the one to stay. To go down fighting."

To face an _end_. Like Angel had once said: _if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do_. But Buffy had been fighting so long already. And she'd never been as resilient as Faith. If one of them was going to have to keep going for decades more, to found a new off-world resistance that would be waiting when the death army of prophecy one day arrived... it was better Buffy was the one who slept, to wake with that support waiting on the other side.

"Not like I'm going to stay here, either," Faith replied with a wan smile. "That'll be your job."

They'd already said their goodbyes; discussed what would come next. With both the Chosen Two off-Earth, breaking their bonds to the planet's energy, hopefully the Slayer line would reset... but it if didn't, it would be left to Angel, his blue-haired shadow, and his ghost of a girlfriend to stem the tide. Either way, the next few decades were going to be ugly. 

"You thought about what you're going to call your colony yet?" he asked.

Faith thought about the expression on Buffy's face, when the sedative had been jammed into her arm; about Xander, going down with a sword in his hand on his fortieth birthday; about Dawn and Willow, blotting out half of Rome in a blaze of green when the last stronghold of Wolfram and Hart tried to call up its patron; about Robin, wounded one time too many, clutching her hand in a hospital bed. About all the others lost over the years. Even Cordelia, returned to the world like an echo of herself in smoke and mercury, stuck halfway back from the threshold to the higher planes when she tried to warn them what was coming.

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

"Furya," she said, hands clenching into fists.

"Furya," Angel echoed quietly, setting a hand on her shoulder. "I could drink to that."

Their own transports would go separate ways in the morning; his back Earthside, Faith's heading out. Until then, though?

"Sounds like a plan."


End file.
